Pope urges Lebanon to set an example for co-existence

Pope Benedict
urged multi-faith Lebanon
on Saturday to be a model of religious peace for the Middle East, as a civil war raged in neighboring Syria,
deepening sectarian divisions.

"Lebanon is called, now more than ever, to be an example," he told political and religious leaders on the second day of a visit that coincided with violent protests
across the Muslim world against a US-made film
insulting Islam.

Lebanon – torn apart by a 1975-1990 sectarian civil war – is a religious mosaic of over four million people whose Muslim majority includes Sunnis, Shi'ites and Alawites. Christians, over one-third of the population, are divided into more than a dozen churches, six of them linked to the Vatican.

Pope Benedict during visit (Photo: AFP)

The German-born pontiff, 85, delivered his morning speech in French at the presidential palace after meeting President Michel Suleiman, a Maronite Christian, Sunni Prime Minister Najib Mikati and parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, a Shi'ite.

At a rally later in the day, he told thousands of cheering young people not to let discrimination, unemployment and instability drive them abroad and reminded young Syrian Christians in the crowd that "the pope has not forgotten you."

Addressing young Muslims also there, he said "together with young Christians, you are the future of this fine country and of the Middle East in general. Seek to built it up together!"

Pontiff was recieved with fireworks (Photo: AFP)

Peace between warring factions and among the many religious groups in the Middle East has been a central theme of Benedict's visit, along with his call to Christians not to leave the region despite war and growing pressure from radical Islamists.

Amira Chabchoul, a Muslim onlooker outside the palace said: "We came to support the pope and also get support from him, because our experience has been that when we listen to him, we are touched and we are helped in our lives."

Anti-Islam film

On Friday, protesters against the anti-Islam film dodged gunfire
and tear gas to hurl stones at security forces in Lebanon's Tripoli where one demonstrator was killed. Protesters chanted "We don't want the pope" and "No more insults"

A Vatican spokesman said the pope was being kept informed of protests against the film, circulated on the Internet under several titles including "Innocence of Muslims".

Warm welcome in Lebanon (Photo: AP)

Benedict began his visit on Friday with a call for an end to all arms supplies to Syria, where the tiny Christian minority fears reprisals if Islamists come to power at the end of the bloody insurgency against President Bashar Assad.

He also described the Arab Spring movement as a "cry for freedom" that was a positive development as long as it ensured tolerance for all religions.

The pope held a private meeting with leaders of the Sunni, Shi'ite and Alawite Muslim communities and of the Druze, an offshoot of Shi'ism with other influences.

Chief Mufti Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, the supreme Sunni leader, praised him for visiting "in these fateful circumstances that Lebanon and the region are living through" and stressed the common goals of both faiths "in the whole Arab world".

"The flight of Christians hurts us Muslims because it means we cannot live with others," he said. Emigration, wars and a low birth rate have cut Christian ranks to 5% of the Middle Eastern population compared with 20% a century ago.